Tag: LG

Analysts tip tablet sales

Posted on December 30, 2014 by - News

new-ipadDespite evidence that sales of tablets showed signs of decline in 2014, one market intelligence is bucking the trend by predicting healthy sales in 2015.

ABI Research said that although 2014 was “lacklustre”, it predicted that there will be solid growth during the next five years with shipments of tablets close to 290 million units in 2019.

But the growth is not for every vendor – Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google will show year on year falls in shipments.

On the other hand, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft and Samsung are predicted to show higher volumes in 2014.

Senior analyst Jeff Orr doesn’t have good news for Apple.  He said: “Historically, Apple has counted approximately 35 percent of its iPad sales in the last calendar quarter of the year.  Unless Apple can pull off a 32+ million unit quarter, sales for 2014 will be down for the first year since the iPad launched.”

He said that Apple probably shipped 68 million iPads in 2014, but managed to sell 74 million in 2013.

On the operating systems front, Android has 54 percent of branded tablets, Apple iOS has fallen to 41 percent, and Windows 8 has a meagre five percent of shipments.

LG in sabotage probe

Posted on December 29, 2014 by - News

lg-ultra-hdProsecutors raided the headquarters of LG as part of a probe into whether the South Korean company had damaged the washing machines of rival Samsung Electronics at retail stores in Germany.

Apparently there is an increasingly bitter rivalry between the two companies which compete in home appliances, TVs and smartphones.

Samsung had asked the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office to investigate LG employees who were seen deliberately destroying several of its premium washing machines on display at two stores in September ahead of the IFA electronics show in Berlin.

Investigators searched the Seoul offices of LG home appliance head, Jo Seong-jin, and others and secured documents and computer hard disks related to the IFA fair, Yonhap News Agency said. They also combed through LG Electronics’ home appliance factory in the southeastern city of Changwon and gave it a rigorous parting.

LG said that it regretted today’s raid.

“Our company – a global company – was raided as a result of a rival’s unilateral and excessive claims, and we are concerned that this would seriously undermine our corporate activities and external credibility,” it said.

It appears that Samsung is a little worried that someone might sabotague its stands at the forthcoming CES show.

Samsung sued LG Electronics employees after the incident in Germany, and LG said the company has counter-sued Samsung employees.

Prosecutors banned LG’s Seong-jin from leaving the country ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to be held January 6.

 

Top TV makers reject OLED

Posted on October 31, 2014 by - News

tv58Samsung and LG have decided that the world is not ready for OLED and the next generation of TVs will run on quantum dot technology.

The problem is that they can’t come up with a way of making OLED affordable for the mass market.

Quantum dot involves incorporating a film of tiny light-emitting crystals into regular liquid crystal displays (LCD). The manufacturing process is relatively straightforward and offers improved picture quality at much cheaper cost than using organic light-emitting diodes (OLED).

The manufacturers think that the resulting lower prices could help the technology catch on far quicker. One industry analyst estimated a 55-inch quantum dot TV would be priced 30 to 35 percent more than a current LCD TV, while an OLED TV could be 5 times more expensive.

LG’s 65-inch ultra-high definition OLED TV cost $11,350  which is a big problem.

The only real difficulty is that the quantum dot material comes from a small pool of suppliers, including Quantum Materials and Nanoco who are almost certain to jack up the prices as it might be in short supply.

Nanoco said a South Korean plant being built by partner Dow Chemical will start quantum dot production in the first half of 2015. Analysts believe the output is destined for a local client.

LG plans to make quantum dot TVs in addition to OLED TVs. Analysts regarded that a tacit acknowledgement that OLED needs more time for prices to come down before eventually becoming the new standard.

LG Chief Financial Officer Jung Do-hyun told analysts after the company reported earnings that OLED is the fundamentally superior product.

Samsung Vice President Simon Sung said that quantum dot is among many technologies under consideration.

Sony is the only major electronics manufacturer selling quantum dot TVs. Researcher DisplaySearch forecasts 1.95 million quantum dot TV shipments next year, for just 0.8 percent of the market, growing to 25.5 million by 2020. IHS Technology sees OLED TV shipments at 7.8 million units by 2019 from 600,000 in 2015.

 

LG is back in the phone race

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

logo lgSouth Korea’s LG, which was getting a good kicking from its rivals, is now back in the black and is making a killing.

LG said its July-September operating profit more than doubled from a year earlier as earnings from its mobile business surged to a five-year high.

Profits for its TV business grew 5.2 percent from a year earlier, while smartphone shipments broke all sorts of records.

“LG’s earnings reflected strong performance from its mobile business,” the company said in a statement.

LG reported an operating profit of $440.21 million which was much better than what had been predicted by the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street.

LG’s mobile division turned a $0.1 billion operating profit, its highest since the third quarter of 2009 and compared with loss a year ago, thanks in part to strong shipments for the flagship G3 smartphone. It is likely that LG likely shipped a little over 3 million G3s during the period. LG said it shipped 16.8 million smartphones during the third quarter.

The pickup contrasts with domestic rival Samsung, which is expected to report its weakest quarterly operating profit in more than three years later this week.

LG’s TV division did well thanks to sales of high-end products like ultra high-definition TVs.

 

LG kills off Plasma TVs

Posted on October 28, 2014 by - News

additional-oxford-dodo-bookLG will end the production of plasma display televisions by end-November in order to focus its efforts on liquid crystal display and OLED televisions.

LG Electronics said in a regulatory filing the decision reflects a decline in demand for plasma televisions. The move was widely expected as LCD TVs have become the mainstay product in the global market while Plasma has become the Betamax of the telly world.

It is not the only company that thinks that plasma is a Norwegian Blue. Samsung SDI, a sister company of LG’s TV rival Samsung , also said in July that it will shut down its plasma panel production business by Nov. 30 due to the decline in overall demand.

The first prototype for a plasma display monitor was invented in July 1964 at the University of Illinois by professors Donald Bitzer and Gene Slottow. However, it was not until after the advent of digital and other technologies that successful plasma televisions became possible. Plasma display is an emissive flat panel display where light is created by phosphors excited by a plasma discharge between two flat panels of glass.

While many companies have successfully manufactured different sizes of plasma displays through early 2000, during 2006 through 2008, Panasonic came out with a 103 inch plasma display, which is the third largest display of plasma in the world, and it was marketed by Jumbo Electronics in Dubai.

By 2006 plasma TVs were overtaken by the LCDs, but in the 40-inch series and above slice, plasma displays had established the control over the market share. It was considered that LCD technology was most suited to small size televisions only while the plasma technology was highly competitive in larger sizes, especially in 40-inches and above.

That changed as bigger LCD screens proved just as good and cheaper.

 

Smartwatches to steal the day

Posted on October 2, 2014 by - News

fobwatchThe jury is still out on whether smartwatches will storm the market but if one research outfit is to be believed, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

IHS, a market research company based in the USA, says revenues for smartwatches will be worth around $300 million this year and predicts a rise of 80 percent annually for “at least” four more years to come.

IHS claims the market will be worth around $23 billion by 2023, with shipments of 800 million units – compared to 54 million this year. Those optimistic figures are fuelled by the belief that we’ll see better resolution and colour displays in years to come.

Sweta Dash, who analyses displays at IHS, believes that fashion will drive sales.  “Wearables are best viewed as functional fashion accessories rather than as electronic goods.  Because the fashion accesory market is determined by design rather than by simple function, wearable products such as smartwatches must be adapable to various forms including squares, circles, or even ovals.”

Battery power is important too.

But Dash sounds a word of caution in what otherwise is a very upbeat report.  “Smartwatches and smart glasses from Google and others are not completely ready for mainstream consumer adoption.” They’re all expensive and won’t make them mass market until prices drop.

LG is back from the dead

Posted on July 24, 2014 by - News

return-of-draculaThe troubled smartphone maker LG is apparently back from the dead and reporting a a record quarter for mobile phone sales.

LG said that it sold 14.5 million handsets over the last quarter, its highest total ever and 20 percent more than last year. More than a third of those were LTE models.

Most of the success was due to the well-reviewed top-of-the-line G3 handset, along with strong sales of its mid-range L products.

LG’s mobile division earned $3.5 billion and put an end to a hat trick of three straight quarters of losses. Home entertainment also performed well, climbing 3 percent on the strength of higher-margin UltraHD 4K sets. All that resulted in an operating profit of $599 million.

Analysts think that LG is taking advantage of a slump in the fortunes of Apple and Samsung to claw its way back into favour. For a while there it did look like LG was about to go the way of Blackberry as a mobile phone company whose days were limited.

While the company is not generating the sorts of numbers that Samsung and Apple can, its sales figures are going up and not down.

A billion smartphones ship

Posted on January 28, 2014 by - News, Products

threeiphonesIDC said that a billion smartphones shipped worldwide.

There are over seven billion humans on the planet.

IDC said that that vendors sold 1,004.2 million smartphones – a rise of 38.4 percent from 2012 – which equates to 725.3 million units in 2012.

And smartphones accounted for 55.1 percent of all mobile phone shipments in 2013 – a rise from the 41.7 percent smartphone share in 2012.

Samsung was the market leader, with Apple, Huawei, Lenovo and LG occupying the top five vendors.

Samsung shipped 313.9 million units in 2013, Apple 153.4 million, Huawei 48.8 million, LG 47.7 million and Lenovo 45.5 million.

“Others” exceeded Samsung by shipping 394.9 million units during 2013.

LCD monitor shipments slow right down

Posted on September 24, 2013 by - News

pc-sales-slumpShipments of LCD monitors hit 71.1 million units in the first half of the year, down 5.45 percent year-on-year. What’s more, the decline is expected to continue in the second half of 2013.

With a double-digit drop in PC shipments earlier this year, soft demand for monitors comes as no surprise. The market is hungry for mobile devices, there is plenty of demand for high resolution tablet screens, but not so much for traditional desktop monitors.

TPV still leads the market with a 35 percent share. Samsung ranks second at 12.7 percent, Qista came in third with 9.8 percent, while LG and Foxconn grabbed 9.6 and 7.6 percent respectively.

One way of getting around the slump is to focus on larger monitors and more value added products, reckons Digitimes. However, it is not very easy to come up with groundbreaking features in this market segment. Nobody will queue in front of a Regent Street shop for three days to buy a new monitor.

There is some progress though. Some vendors have started rolling out wider form factors, which should be popular among gamers. Curved screens are also around, but they are more of a gimmick at this point. UHD or 4K gear remains prohibitively expensive and it will be a few years before it goes mainstream.

Nexus 7 out, Nexus 4’s price cut

Posted on August 28, 2013 by - News, Products

nexus4-ceGoogle’s Nexus 7 has gone on sale in Britain. Prices start at £199 for the 16GB version, while the 32GB one costs £239. In addition to Google’s Play Store, it is also available at Currys, Tesco, Argos, Amazon and John Lewis.

It is competitively priced. Although it’s based on a  Qualcomm chip which is also used in the Nexus 4, the Nexus 7 features a 1920×1200 screen and as it is a Nexus device, software support is second to none. In many respects, it renders other cheap 7-inch tablets rather pointless, which is hardly great news for Google hardware partners. The Nexus 7 is now available in France, Germany and Spain, too. However, smaller markets will have to wait.

The Nexus 4 has been around for a while, but it is still a very competitive product. It might not have a 1080p screen or the latest greatest processor, but it’s a great workhorse and its build quality is still superior to any Samsung phone out there. Now it’s an even better deal, as Google slashed the price for the 8GB model to just £159, while the 16GB version now costs £239. If LTE isn’t a must have, the Nexus 4 is truly a steal for anyone who does not want to get bogged down in a two-year carrier deal.

Google is also expected to roll out a new Nexus 10 later this year and rumours of a Nexus 5 superphone are rampant. Let’s not forget the Moto X, either, although it is limited to the US market.

It’s all good news for Android fans and Google, but Google hardware partners are probably not amused. With such low prices, Nexus products are disruptive and they are hard to keep up with. They always get the latest updates and on the hardware front they offer great value, although they don’t tend feature the latest tech out there.

The only good bit news for other Android peddlers is that Google doesn’t appear to be trying too hard. Geeks love Nexus gear, but average people have no idea that it exists at all. Google is simply not marketing Nexus products properly, but this might be about to change. Googlerola recently announced that it would spend a few hundred million dollars on Moto X marketing and if Google starts marketing Nexus products just as aggressively, well then,  anything could happen.

Smartphones overtake feature phones

Posted on August 14, 2013 by - News

smartphones-genericSmartphone sales are up again, but growth is slowing. The worldwide market gobbled up 435 million phones in the second quarter, up 3.6 percent over the same period last year. However, worldwide smartphone sales have now reached 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from a year ago.

It was only a matter of time before smartphone shipments outpaced feature phone shipments and according to Gartner, this happened last quarter. Feature phone, or dumb phone shipments totalled just 210 million units, down 21 percent year-on-year.

“Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.

Samsung still reigns supreme, with 71.4 million units shipped last quarter and a 31.7 percent market share. Apple ranks second with 31.9 million units, but it is losing market share fast. LG and Lenovo had a very good quarter, shipping 11.5 and 10.6 million smartphones respectively. ZTE ranked fifth with 9.7 million units. Nokia, HTC, Blackberry and Sony are no longer in the top five. However, the top five vendors accounted for just 60 percent of the market, while 40 percent went to smaller outfits, including an ever increasing number of Chinese white-box manufacturers.

gartner-smartphones-august2013

Gartner found that much of Samsung’s demand is now coming from mid-tier products and high-end devices with ASPs up to $400. It concluded that Samsung needs to do more to make its mid-range offering more appealing.  Oddly enough Apple also saw a dip in ASP, which is currently at the lowest level since 2007. This is the result of surprising strong sales of the iPhone 4 in some markets. Apple has recognized the trend and it plans to introduce a new, cheaper iPhone next month.

But Lenovo is the name to look out for. It’s making a killing in the dreary PC market and it’s doing even better in smartphones, although much of its effort goes unnoticed in the west. Lenovo almost doubled its share over the last 12 months and the company plans to bring its smartphones to western markets soon, possibly even next year.

Android remains the dominant operating system, with a 79 percent share, up from 64.2 percent a year ago. Apple’s iOS ranks second with a 14.2 percent share, down from 18.8 percent in Q2 2012. Microsoft gained some ground, but Windows Phone 8 still has a tiny share, 3.3 percent, up from 2.6 percent last year. Blackberry’s share halved to 2.7 percent and the Canadian company is now looking for a buyer. As with all things Blackberry, the decision comes three years too late.

Mobile market prepares for bendy screens

Posted on June 20, 2013 by - News

7746.yoga5LG Display is about to kickstart the mass production of smartphone bending display screens.

According to the Korea Times, the flexible displays are expected to be in the channel ready to ship to OEMs.

In a statement to the Times the company said that it had completed the development of its first flexible displays.

It will be using a 4.5th generation glass-cutting technology for the OLED flexible displays. Monthly capacity for the line was set as 12,000 sheets.

LG spokesman Frank Lee said there was a rapid need for display advancements.
Already LG is hoping to get the leg over its rivals by releasing a smartphone with the technology later this year..

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology used in the LG bendable display screens is apparently thinner, lighter, and more flexible than conventional LCD displays.

While it is unbreakable and bendable smartphones could curve with a user’s body movements so that the devices sit more comfortably in a pocket or pack into any number of compartments.

When the sudden rush of flexible screens come out, it could kickstart the smartphone market which has suddenly ground to a hold as the US and European market became saturated.

 

Handset sales up, Samsung gains share

Posted on May 14, 2013 by - News, Products

nexus4-ceSmartphone wars are becoming rather predictable. Every quarter sales notch up and every quarter Samsung emerges as the big winner. The last quarter was no exception. However, growth is slowing as the market matures, although there is still plenty of room for growth in emerging markets. 

Worldwide phone sales totalled 426 million units in the first quarter, up 0.7 percent year-on-year. Smartphones saw a lot more growth, with sales totalling 2010 million units, up 42.9 percent from a year ago, according to a Gartner survey.

Sales of feature phones are down in all regions except Asia, while smartphones accounted for 49.3 percent of all phone sales worldwide, up from 34.8 percent in Q1 2012. At the same time feature phone sales contracted 21.8 percent.

“Feature phones users across the world are either finding their existing phones good enough or are waiting for smartphones prices to drop further, either way the prospect of longer replacement cycles is certainly not good news for both vendors and carriers looking to move users forward,” Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta said.

Samsung saw its market share go up from 21.1 percent to 23.6 percent. Apple also did well, growing from 7.8 to 9 percent, while Nokia’s share dropped from 19.7 to 14.8 percent. However, looking at smartphone sales, Samsung’s share was 30.8 percent, up from 27.6 percent. It was trailed by Apple at 18.2 percent, down from 22.5 percent. LG grabbed the bronze, with a 4.8 percent share. Huawei also had a good quarter, upping their share to 4.4 and 3.8 percent respectively and outperforming former heavyweights like Nokia, Sony and HTC.

Android is still the dominant mobile operating system, with a share of 74.4 percent, up from 56.9 a year earlier. Apple’s iOS share stands at 18.2 percent, down from 22.5 percent a year ago. Just so it wouldn’t look like a two-horse race, Blackberry is still in the game with a 3 percent share, down from 6.8 percent last year. Apparently BB10 did not make a huge difference. Windows Phone has a 2.9 percent share, up from 1.9 percent last year. It is growing, but at a painfully slow rate.

Monitor market in decline

Posted on March 20, 2013 by - News

50scrtThe stagnating and eventually declining demand for the traditional PC desktop has had an inevitable knock-on effect in the monitor industry, with the latest report from analyst house IDC lowering its Q4 2012 estimate from 37.9 million to 36.3 million units.

IDC also lowered total shipment forecasts for 2013 from 142.8 million to 140.1 million units, or a six percent yearly decline. The grim forecast will not be getting any better, with expectations that by 2017 shipments will drop to 122.2 million units.

As with the desktop itself, the booming mobile computing trend is essentially killing off demand for the monitor. IDC pointed to “consumer confusion” about Windows 8 paired with the wider economic situation as pretty solid reasons why people aren’t buying, which means decreased demand going into 2013.

Average selling prices, too, are likely to decline by as much as 1.5 percent per year going through to 2017. Those that are interested in buying will be glad to hear that overcrowded competition will mean companies lowering prices as they try to win custom. Price per inch could decline from $8.35 in 2012 to $7.46 in 2017, which should continue because of what IDC calls the natural migration of users to larger screen sizes. In 2012, the mean screen size was 20.4″, but this should grow to 21.4″ by 2017.

Vendors can boost their margins by looking towards innovation and building consumer value with lower cost monitors. IDC cites Samsung’s PLS technology as an attractive way to seduce custom.

IDC’s senior research analyst, Linn Huang, said that failure to drive innovation in the market will “likely result in the long-term tradeoff of profit margin for volume retention”.

Of the vendors still in the game, Samsung is ahead with 15 percent of the market share. Dell followed with 12.7 percent, and HP, Lenovo, and LG had 10.8 percent, 9.7 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively.

How the big boys killed Google and Apple’s TV

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions

5d5ff59c-434d-11e2-989b-12313d1f5c43About a year ago you could not read anything in the tech press about how the big names were pressing into the telly industry.

Google and Apple were all outed as being likely to become big players. Their channel partners waited, after all there was some big dosh to be made in joint operations, and suddenly there was nothing.

Google pulled off a big “oh look a badger” and started talking about Google Glass while Apple instructed its Tame Apple Press to start writing meaningless pieces about watches instead.
So what happened to the television being the cure for Apple and Google’s woes?

According to Forbes it was some dark satanic practices being carried out behind closed doors in the Far East.

But in the old days control the TV meant you might also control other household functions, like remote control of the air conditioning. Microsoft was early into TV operating systems for that reason.

Its logic is that the TV market is owned by Korean manufacturers and in particular Samsung, and by LG and they are making their plans grander by the minute.

LG recently bought WebOs from HP, specifically for use in smart TVs while Samsung already has a smart TV project that has sucked up developers of iOS, Windows and Android.

For Apple and Google to get into this market they have to do something pretty sexy in a channel where they are an innocent Shirley Temple doing a rounding redition of “good ship lollypop” before a convent of Nuns.

Apple looked at the competition, saw how good it was, and thought “Nah lets stick to making toys.” Google on the otherhand has been a bit more shifty.

The Web OS purchase was bad news for Google TV, but it exposed the extent of Google’s plans. In the beginning the company courted a number of big TV manufacturers for Google TV, with the idea of having the system embedded in a wide variety of TV sets.

It spoke to Sony, which was one of the first to make Google TVs, LG came on board for the second generation, and Samsung seemed to be ready to go Google as well by early 2012.

However a year afterwards Samsung’s Google TV never materialised and Sony stopped selling and now, LG is buying its own smart TV operating system. This means that Google is stuck to a companion box and is snookered.

So why have the big players gone all Altair’ on Google? It appears that it might not be Google, but the operating system that it runs on which has the big Asian names miffed.

For a while now there has been muttering that Android has become too powerful. The moaning has not just come from the Chinese Government, which is looking to build its own Red Friendly operating system, but Google’s partners too.

Some of that was Google’s fault, in buying Motorola, but there are some other reasons too. The first is that many are terrified of returning to a situation where one operating system has control over the market. Although Android is Open Source it still operates at the will of Google.

What is starting to look possible is that Samsung could use Tizen and LG will use Web OS.
The interesting point here that recently Intel revealed its TV plans. It is coming in late, and really few people will care, but it looks like it means that it will not only have to do it without Samsung or LG. True it could run its TV on WebOs or Tizen but that is not normally its style. It probably thought it could come in with Android and everything would be home and hosed. Only it wasn’t.